AJ Aitken the Playboy of the West Germanic World

A. J. Aitken The Playboy of the West Germanic World [1995]1 Edited by Caroline Macafee, 2015 Editor’s note: in this previously unpublished talk, AJA pays tribute to teachers and colleagues who influenced him: J. Dover Wilson, Donald Wolfit, O. K. Schram, Sir William Craigie and David Abercrombie. He also describes something of his university education and the early years of his career. Some of the context of his own work is also mentioned in his tribute to Angus McIntosh (‘Angus McIntosh and Scottish studies’, 1981, 2015). Edinburgh Studies in English and Scots, edited by AJA and others (1971), is dedicated to Schram’s memory. AJA contributed the entry for Craigie in the Dictionary of National Biography (now the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography), as well as reviewing A Memoir and a List of the Published Writings of Sir William A Craigie in 1953, and marking Craigie’s centenary with a contribution to an exhibition in the National Library of Scotland. The newspaper item ‘Quiet Scot who was a master of words’ (1967, 2015) is from the same time. AJA wrote an obituary of Abercrombie (1992). How to cite this paper (adapt to the desired style): Aitken, A. J. ([1995], 2015) ‘The Playboy of the West Germanic World’, in †A. J. Aitken, ed. Caroline Macafee, ‘Collected Writings on the Scots Language’ (2015), [online] Scots Language Centre http://medio.scotslanguage.com/library/document/aitken/The_Playboy_of_the_West_Germanic_World_[1995] (accessed DATE). I need to begin by explaining the title. I graduated from Edinburgh University in English Language and Literature, specialising in Language, in 1947. The following year, I was appointed Assistant to the Lecturer in English Language, Dr O. K. Schram. At that time, two full years of study of English Language were an obligatory part of the Honours English curriculum, and the emphasis in English Language was on the early history of the language (up to the time of Chaucer) and on formal characteristics of the language. So students had to learn about sound changes like Grimm’s Law and i-mutation, Anglo-Saxon declensions and conjugations, and similarly for Middle English. Not surprisingly, all of this was deeply unpopular with most students. My own stint of teaching – the two of us covered the whole two year course between us – included the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, some Anglo-Saxon heroic poems, Anglo-Saxon metre, and various Middle English texts as a concomitant of the Anglo-Saxon verse, and some account of the manners and ethos of the West Germanic peoples. At the end of the year, the Junior Honours class gave, as was the custom, a party for the Finalists and the staff. A centre-piece of this in 1948 was a play, or skit, written by the late Alex. Rodger, all about the adventures of a juvenile hero in a parody of Anglo-Saxon society, entitled ‘The Playboy of the West Germanic World’. The hero’s name, it turned out, was Jack – the same as mine. Now when first asked to give this talk, one theme suggested as suitable was something associated with Edinburgh University, so it occurred to me to talk about some people who greatly impressed and influenced me, and, to a lesser extent, events that I took part in, in my early years at Edinburgh University, that is to say, the years 1939–41 and just after the war, when the people I’ll be discussing were wandered among [sic] as the Playboy of the West Germanic World. 1 Talk given to the Edinburgh University Dining Society, previously unpublished. Correspondence suggests that the lecture was given on a date between 19 October and 10 December, 1995. The text has been verbally expanded from AJA’s manuscript notes, contained in four small notebooks. All notes are editorial. A. J. Aitken: Collected Writings on the Scots Language My first two years at university were 1939–41, the first two years of the War. I had the great good fortune to attend in the days when the old teaching regimen prevailed, whereby the departmental Professor (there was normally only one then), himself conducted most of the First Ordinary Class. So the Professor of British History carried on a series of lectures throughout the year – from pre-history to the present century – and the Professor of English conducted the Ordinary Class, as they used to say then, from Beowulf to Virginia Woolf. That was in each case something like 70 or 80 lectures in all, which must have been a very demanding task when the Professor was first appointed. I mentioned British History and English deliberately because I was also fortunate that there were two immensely distinguished and enthralling teachers as Professors of these subjects in my first year. Their names were V. H. Galbraith in British History, and J. D. Wilson in English Literature. In those days – I don’t know what happens now – students used to shop around and attend lectures in subjects other than those enrolled for, just to hear a famous teacher. Both Galbraith and Dover Wilson in that way commonly attracted numerous extras to the audiences at their lectures. Partly for reasons of time and partly because I didn’t know them personally as I did my teachers after the War, I will say no more of Galbraith and only a little of Dover Wilson. Galbraith had a great reputation for sagacity – at least with his students – and at History Society meetings used to get asked impossible questions – like the very topical one then: how could we prevent future wars? He was a kenspeckle figure with a great mop of uncombed white hair – this was at a time when men kept their hair close-cropped – and a reputation for never getting a haircut. Once in my time the word went round the university, or at least the Arts Faculty, like wildfire, “Galbraith has had his hair cut,” and a great concourse gathered to cheer him across the Old Quad as he arrived for his morning lecture. (Then all the Arts departments were located either in the Old Quad or across the way in Chambers Street.)2 Dover Wilson was one of the leading Shakespeare scholars of his time – historian, critic, textual scholar, and editor. He lectured on other Shakespearian topics to more senior classes, such as textual criticism and authorship (at that time there was something of a vogue, to which Dover Wilson did not subscribe, for attributing the works of Shakespeare to other authors – Francis Bacon and others). But in his Shakespeare lectures to the First Ordinary Class he confined himself to enthralling examinations of what the plays were about. This was also the theme of a number of his books, such as one called What Happens in Hamlet. As well as his own lectures, Dover Wilson arranged for us to have a lecture from his friend, the actor-manager Donald Wolfit. I will say a little about Wolfit. Wolfit led a theatrical company which toured Britain, staying in each of a number of centres for a fortnight, and performing mostly Shakespeare, occasionally Ben Jonson, in repertory, a different play every night, with Wolfit playing the lead in each play – Hamlet one night, then Touchstone the next, then Othello, then Malvolio, then Shylock, then Volpone, and so on, quite a feat of memorisation at the very least. As you can imagine, the arrival of the Wolfit company was a memorable occasion for keen English Literature students like me. I said Wolfit played the lead in each play. This was because, even though the character he played was not strictly the leading character, say Touchstone, Malvolio or Bottom, it somehow became the lead, the one the audience were most interested in, simply by the presence and authority of Wolfit’s acting. In this way, though there were several other able actors in the company, including Wolfit’s wife, Rosalind Iden, Wolfit totally dominated the company. He was the star. They were his support. I always regarded him as the greatest actor 2 This paragraph is scored out in the manuscript. Most crossed-out material has been heavily cancelled and replaced by other wording, but some material, including some autobiographical information already published in Aitken (1981, 2015), is lightly scored through and was perhaps sacrificed for reasons of timing. The lightly scored-out material has been included here in the text, but the scoring is noted. 2 Paper 6: The Playboy of the West Germanic World I ever witnessed. He is often described as the last of the great actor-managers. He was a large man, with a great lion’s head, beetle-browed, with thick black hair, a big round fruity voice, and tremendous verve and presence. He spoke, of course, with a full RP accent – at that time it was unthinkable to perform Shakespeare, or at least the serious characters in Shakespeare, even in Macbeth, in any other accent. (Judging from the recent Hamlet at the Lyceum, it still is.) Wolfit’s forte was larger than life characters, such as Lear, Volpone, or Falstaff. Other characters, say Othello or Hamlet, he also performed as larger than life. He excelled in the set speeches, which he trumpeted out in his great voice. At one of his performances of Lear, one of my classmates actually fainted. Seat next the aisle, just slumped over into the aisle.3 As one can imagine, his performance of the storm scene in King Lear was incomparable – in that scene the actor playing Lear has to, in effect, create the storm himself by his delivery of the poetry. At least he had to in Shakespeare’s own time.

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